Everyone knows that déjà vu feeling—that strange sense of having experienced something before. But fewer may know vuja dé, coined by the comedian George Carlin to describe that strange feeling that somehow … this has never happened before. Many Florida commercial real estate players are currently experiencing both déjà vu and vuja dé. Economic activity has substantially declined. Tourism quickly evaporated. Restaurants and hotels shuttered. Borrowers demanding grace periods and modifications. But layered over all this is the pandemic, Covid-19, halting Chinese construction supplies and investors’ willingness to part with their funds. Yes, this should remind you of 2007 again. But no, this is something totally different.

If you are a commercial real estate veteran who survived the troubled 2007 downturn, you know it is time to stop stockpiling toilet paper and instead take stock of your financial position now.